Installing JBoss Tools is a straightforward process that can be accomplished in multiple ways. Next, you will see two of the most secure and used methods for installing JBoss Tools on the supported platforms.
It is obvious that before installing JBoss Tools, you will need to download and install the Eclipse IDE. For getting the best results in a short time, it is recommended to use Eclipse version 3.4.x (we downloaded the Eclipse 3.4.1—component of Eclipse Ganymede Packages) and the embedded WTP version. The quickest way to get this is to download the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers, which is available at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ for three platforms: Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Notice that for all the platforms, the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers requires at least Java 5.
Note
In this book, we have used the Eclipse IDE version 3.4.1 and the embedded WTP, which was the latest stable release when this book was written. In addition to this, the examples were developed and tested on Windows XP operating system.
Uaually Eclipse is provided as a ZIP/RAR archive that should be unzipped in your favorite location. Afterwards, the Eclipse can be launched through eclipse.exe executable file. Anyway, for troubleshooting, you have a detailed documentation of Eclipse at http://help.eclipse.org/ganymede/index.jsp.
The quickest and simplest way to install the JBoss Tools consists of using a great facility of Eclipse, named Software Updates. This is a graphical wizard that will guide you through the search/install process of the latest plug-ins/add-ons for Eclipse. For installing JBoss Tools, you can use this wizard as follows:
1. Launch the Eclipse IDE.
2. From the Help menu, select Software Updates.
3. Switch to the Available Software tab.
4. Click on the Manage Sites button.
5. Click on the the Add button and type http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/development in the Add Site window—if it is already listed, make sure it is enabled (checked).
6. Return to the previous wizard and expand the newly added node (left-panel)—this is the checkbox especially created for http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/development resource. Wait for Eclipse to pending this resource. When the pending ends, you should see a list of checkboxes (one for each JBoss Tools component) under the resource node.
7. For this book, it is recommended to download and install the entire package of tools by selecting all the corresponding checkboxes. Note that in case you want to install only a subset of tools, you have to keep in mind the dependencies between standalone plug-ins (a diagram of dependencies between the most used plug-ins is in the first figure). After you decide what tools to install, just click on the Install button and follow the wizard instructions.
Any error/warning/info that occurs while download/install is in progress will be reported in the Problems view or in installation wizard pages. This Problems view will appear automatically when the download process begins and in the best case, it will remain empty during the download/install process (as shown in the following screenshot).
A common error while installing JBoss Tools 3 under Eclipse 3.4, appears in the installation wizard after we click on the Install button. These errors are about invalid jars or missing dependencies. To be precise, the message error is something like this: Unable to satisfy dependency from org.eclipse.birt.report.viewer.... Fixing this error can be done by the following steps:
1. Cancel current operation, close and reopen the Software Updates wizard.
2. Use the Manage Site button to add two more sites, as follows (if they already exist, then just check them): http://download.eclipse.org/birt/update-site/2.3/ and http://download.eclipse.org/releases/ganymede/. Check these two entries in the Available Software Sites wizard, and click the OK button.
3. Returning to the main wizard page, make sure that all checkboxes are deselected and click on the Refresh button.
4. Wait until the refresh is accomplished, then mark as selected the checkbox corresponding to http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/development. After pending ends, select all under-checkboxes and click on the Install button. This time you should not get any errors.
If you want to get more involved in the installation process, then you can choose to "manually" download and install JBoss Tools. This is a three-step process as follows:
1. To start, you have to download the JBoss Tools according to your platform (Windows/x86, Linux/GTK/x86, Linux/GTK/x86_64, Mac OS X Carbon/Universal) from the http://www.jboss.org/tools/download/index.html address (or this link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=22866&package_id=242269).
2. Next, unzip the files into your eclipse
plugins/featuresdirectory, and restart Eclipse with the -clean option, like this:eclipse –clean3. When Eclipse restarts, the new features will be ready to serve you! To check if something was installed, try the New | Other option in the File menu. In the projects type list, you should see new entries like Hibernate, Web Services, ESB and so on. These appear because you just successfully installed JBoss Tools.